Antibiotics In Factory Farm Essay

The author Tom Philpot starts the article off with a funny title but non-the less negative analogy of factory farms and anti-biotics. Although a negative title it does catch your attention because the term playing chicken means someone must die. So the title make you wonder what does farm factories have to do with antibiotics one of our most important miracle drugs used to combat infections.

Factory farmed animals are not only poor, but also low quality. Since the animals, pigs for example, are in contact with each other so close, they are sprayed with antibiotics to keep germs from spreading. Those antibiotics are used many, many times, resulting in very low quality meat and are harmful to our human body.

The effects of factory farming is not worth the damage that is done to the health of the environment, animals, and people. The idea of a factory farm is to produce meat at a faster pace, but the way these companies accomplish this task makes life a living hell for the animals. For example, “They’re often given so little space that they can’t even turn around or lie down comfortably. Egg-laying hens are kept in small cages, chickens and pigs are kept in jam-packed sheds, and cows are kept on crowded, filthy feedlots”(Factory). The animals on these farms have to experience constant fear and agony, especially since most factory farmed animals will be genetically manipulated to grow larger or to produce more milk or eggs than they naturally would, and suffer severe pain throughout their entire life(Factory). Animals, especially cows, are being abused not only physically, but mentally as well.. For example, “just within hours of birth, calves are taken away from

The poor housing of farm animals in factory farms is an issue because the stress factors and living conditions can cause the animals immune systems to weaken. According to an article about the practices of factory farming, “Common practices include packing pregnant pigs into gestation crates so small they cannot turn around, placing egg-laying hens in cages stacked on top of one another in massive enclosed buildings and raising cows on feedlots rather than the grass pastures many of us associate with ruminants” (Anomaly 1). This quote explains that the living space of animals in a factory farm is different from what consumers expect. When consumers go to the grocery store, they may see a picture of an old country farm with animals freely wondering, but in reality animals are stored as items and not free creatures. According to an article written by Bradley S. Miller, “As reported by a veterinarian, Dr. Bruce Feldman, When animals are intensively confined and under stress, as they are in factory farms, their auto-immune systems are weakened and they are prone to infectious diseases” (Miller 2). This quote speaks of how much the risk factors of sickness increase when animals are confined and under great amounts of stress. Overpopulated animal storage is an ethical and moral concern because it brings an unnecessary stress and a burden to animals. Not only is the storage of animals, both ethically and morally wrong, consequently, it is also a reason that disease outbreaks occur in many factory farms.

Industrial farms use antibiotics in animal feed and water to prevent disease in farm animals. Many farms use antibiotics before an infection has even occurred.

Do you want the animals you eat feed antibiotics and the food is not fresh or do you want food that is fresh and the animals are feed right?Ranchers and farmers have been feeding antibiotics to the animals we eat. Ever since they discovered decades ago and has been found as a health risk to humans but there is a food chain that can help America. The local sustainable food chain is the best food source to feed America.

Throughout the years of society our views on factory farming have drastically changed. Many people used to think that our biggest problem with factory farming was how we would mutilate and torture innocent animals. Animals would be put in a situation where they would be force fed, and sometimes beaten by humans, the unthinkable has already happened and now we have to think about the long term effects of Factory Farming. However, as significant as the ethical argument is, people are also ignoring the fact of it being so bad for your body. Cancer, H1N1, and  Avian Flu are the main health problems due to Factory Farming. On top of that we have 3 million people getting diagnosed with obesity from all the antibiotics there putting in from the the meat. The amount of people it is affecting is outstanding, not only for the meat but the factory farming also affecting our water. The thing that we thought that was the safest for our bodies in the one thing we have to worry about most, for our generation to the next this is a issue we can’t ignore.

By weight, eighty percent of antibiotics are used in agriculture to “fatten animals” and “protect them from the conditions in which they are raised” (McKenna). Animals are given micro-doses of antibiotics, that is, a small amount of antibiotics to prevent diseases from occurring. This micro-dosage amount allows for mutation that Fleming described. The routine use of antibiotics in agriculture has led to “[sixty-five] percent of chicken breasts” and “[forty-four] percent of ground beef” to house bacteria “resistant to tetracycline”. Additionally, “[eleven] percent of pork chops carried bacteria resistant to five classes of drugs” (McKenna). These bacteria then spread from animals to the humans who eat them, causing humans to get infections which cannot be treated. The issue isn’t as simple as ceasing to give antibiotics to animals. Most animals raised for consumption live in an environment ripe for infections and diseases to spread. Instead of giving the animals more room to live, the majority of farmers opt to give the animals antibiotics. For cattle, This prevents diseases and death to the immature weaned calves and cattle which saves the rancher both time and money—passing on the savings to the consumers. In a free market society higher prices tend to not go well. However, if antibiotics became useless farmers would have to “[enlarge] barns, [cut] down on crowding, and [delay] weaning”, which ultimately would increase the costs of raising livestock

The main threat for the overuse of antibiotics are the creation of antibiotic resistant microbes, or more commonly called superbugs. Antibiotics are used to kill mass amounts of bacteria, but they cannot kill all of them. Some bacteria still survive, so they will reproduce and pass their genes down to their offspring. The offspring will now have their parents genes, which includes being resistant to a certain type of antibiotic. Tom Philpott, an award winning writer about food politics, explained, “And the worst part is that antibiotics use in factory farms is not mostly matter of keeping animals healthy.” Philpott is saying farmers mostly use antibiotics to promote faster growth and not to treat sickness. American Cyanamid, a pharmaceutical company, tested animals with vitamin B12 to see if they grew faster. The animals saw significant weight gain, and more experiments were tested. What American Cyanamid found was the antibiotic in vitamin B12 was actually causing the weight gain. This discovery led to mass amounts of antibiotics being used in animals. In 1950, before the discovery, there were 1.6 million chicken farms raising a total of about 560 million chickens. 28 years later, 3 billion chickens were being hatched in about 31,000 large farms (Philpott). The discovery led to mass expansion of farms, because animals were able to grow faster and bigger, so farms took advantage. Factory farms have been overusing

It’s problematic that we don’t question the food we eat whether it be from McDonalds or a fancy upscale restaurant. We need to be more aware of what is going on around us especially when the food we eat is causing an array of health issues for us. The unsanitary conditions found within the factory farm industry contributes to the pathogens found in the meat we eat. As the saying goes you get what you pay for. Factory farming is based upon producing large quantities of meat at a very low cost. This driving force behind the system is not worth getting food poising or something detrimental. In the chapter “Influence / Speechlessness” the habitats of the chickens are displayed “jamming deformed, drugged,

Antibiotic use in animals has recently captured the attention of various professionals as the blatant, adverse effects have become increasingly prevalent. Agricultural manufacturers carelessly inject livestock with antibiotics in order to maximize their weight gain by minimizing the amount of energy consumed in fighting illnesses. This broad use of antibiotics in food-producing animals has contributed to the emergence and distribution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, resulting in either mild or fatal illnesses. To put the severity of this issue in perspective, legislators must realize that 1 in 5 antibiotic-resistant infections are caused by bacteria from food and animals. Although antibiotic use in animals is not the sole culprit of the

This is due in part by the previous statement to get higher yields out every animal raised. Cattle, chickens and pigs alike are all subject to certain fattening diets, modern breeding techniques and growth hormone treatments. These forced practices have very adverse, life altering and threatening affects that lead farmers to use antibiotics in order to keep diseases at bay. The Committee on Drug Use in Food Animals states, “doses are used when pathogens are known to be present in the environment or when animals encounter a high stress situation and are more susceptible to pathogens “, (1999, p. 28). It is important to point out that the use of growth hormones and antibiotics dramatically increases body mass, drastically shortens the lifespan of animals such as cattle and is being detected in food for human consumption.

For many Americans, the term “factory farming” conjures up images of mistreated livestock crowded into undersized cages while force fed large amounts of antibiotics and growth hormones. Yet for others, greatly reduced prices on meat and other animal by products, such as eggs and milk, helping to keep costs of food down for their families’, springs to mind. Factory farming has managed to reduce costs of meat, poultry and by products, making it more accessible to our citizens by increasing rate of production and efficiency, while reducing the space utilized to farm livestock. However, the ability to increase production relies heavily on the use of large amounts of growth hormones and antibiotics in livestock,

“This is horrible! I can’t even watch this!” Those were my immediate thoughts the first time my eyes were opened to the inhumane animal cruelty on factory farms. Factory farming enables mass production to supply the demands of today’s society but also enables the cruel treatment of animals. We need to end the cruelty and abuse that these animals have to endure at the factory farms because it causes loss to the business, reduces the quality of the product produced, and endangers the health of those who buy the product. We can promote humane treatment of factory farm animals by prevention through education, by enforcing humane laws by being an example of humane animal treatment, and by donating and/or

As the soil becomes more and more polluted with these toxins, it becomes unsustainable. Therefore, land that would have remained fertile for centuries through the commonsense farming of our ancestors, is being ruined by farming controlled by big corporations whose sole interest is in immediate short term profit (Goodall 38). Industrialized livestock farming with thousands of animals crammed into small factory spaces is responsible for numerous bacterial and viral infections such as E.coli., Avian bird flu, Mad cow disease, Salmonella, and many more. Therefore, conventional farmers use antibiotics to keep these animals alive. This over use of antibiotics is causing the creation of new, resistant strains of deadly diseases that kill people and animals. Disease is actually caused by the bad practices, shortcuts, and antibiotic resistance. This has the opposite effect of what was intended and also costs farmers millions of dollars every year instead of saving money. Unfortunately, conventional agriculture experts recommend these monocultural farming practices in the name of quick, mass production.